


this is the COMMUNITY death note and WE get to choose the murder

by plumestrike



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, rem's opinion of ryuk which can be summed up as Lesbian Animosity, vague mentions of misa and ryuk specifically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:42:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25260310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumestrike/pseuds/plumestrike
Summary: So this AU is my ocs replacing misa in the story, not bc i hate misa but the opposite in fact. She is Too Good for DN and deserves to not be involved w/ any of this bullshit in the first place. Her only relevance is as a bg celebrity sayu likes a la hideki ryuuga and she gets therapy and a gf and is never involved in the absolutely off the rails paranormal murder shenanigans herself. Good for her.
Relationships: Rem (Death Note) & Original Character(s)
Kudos: 1





	this is the COMMUNITY death note and WE get to choose the murder

**Author's Note:**

> There are 3 ocs in this fic, Thursday (they/them, replaces the “saved by Gelus” Misa Amane role), Yuzu (she/her) who’s off the shits a little, & Kol (he/him) who’s the designated Authority Figure and does not wish to be. A warning to all however that I’m completely illiterate and Especially cannot parse my own writing even a little. So, good luck.
> 
>  **Me making these ocs:** and they were roommates  
>  **Me to myself about my own ocs:** oh my god they were roommates

Rem wasn't sure what to think of humans.

_"Wait okay, so let me get this straight-"_

Well, scratch that, since prior to today she'd always been fairly consistent in her thoughts towards them; that is to say, she simply didn’t _bother_ to think of them much overall. Not outside of the minimal necessary, at any rate.

Check her lifespan occasionally, write down a few names in her death note. She did her best to pick out humans with the longest lives yet lived, simpler for everyone to take what she needs and not have to bother for another century or so.

In that way, Rem is what you might call meticulous, by shinigami standards at least. She prefers to be prepared if nothing else. An apt human comparison would be like stocking up food for winter.

Though even this much, to many of her peers, is viewed as something close to hard work. Plenty of them only bothered when their livelihoods (for whatever value one may consider them that) were at imminent risk, and even then they'd just drag themselves to the nearest portal and write down a handful of names haphazardly.

Many of her peers don't even bother with that much, these days.

* * *

“Th- _oof,_ hey wha _-_ ” The new human gasps a bit as the death note is shoved into their hands, and she blinks a few times before her head whips to look at the newly visible shinigami across the room.

Dazed for a moment, she flinches back to herself just as quickly, clutching the death note to her chest she puts herself bodily between Rem and Gelus’ human, glaring up at her with a panicked kind of hostility that Rem doesn’t quite know what to do with.

No, rather, it was these humans that she wasn’t quite sure about. And there were three of them now, for all that she shouldn’t be as surprised by this as she is (creatures so quick to huddle together in the face of forces larger than themselves, for all that they're even quicker to turn on one another in any other circumstance).

Perhaps it was the situation itself that was wearing on her. It seems as if more had happened in the past few hours than she could remember from the past decade or two, it seems excusable that she wouldn’t quite know how to navigate.

When she came down to the human realm, it was more of a gesture towards the dying will of her friend than something she put much thought into (and when did she start referring to him as a friend? Is it only now she considers him one, what all she’s gained from his loss? the knowledge, the fear, the _absence_ )

* * *

The humans themselves were, at present, huddled on the floor around the table of their living space. Gelus' death note lying open in the center of it, and all of them now ignoring her and one another in favor of turning over the revelations of the past few hours.

The third human came in with the second, carefully taking the death note clutched in her arms.

The last of the menagerie that Gelus’ human thought to invite. He too fumbles with the death note, tries not to double take after seeing her. He scratches the back of his neck and attempts a smile.

He was the one who moved the whole procession to the seating area, ushered the girl and set the book down gingerly, like a bomb. Draped a blanket over Gelus’ humans’ shoulders after they sat themself on the floor and swept everything else off the table. Jerked a nod and motioned her to join them.

Looking at them, each of them trying to piece together their fragile patchwork worldviews after she’d iterated and reiterated the same exposition to them, she wonders if she’ll end up growing to second guess that decision sooner or later.

She would, afterall, be here in the human realm for the foreseeable future. While it was passing curiosity that led her to joining Gelus in watching this particular mortal’s life, her own general apathy is the more characteristic trait of her kind. 

To her, it all seems to blend into more of a tedious rush that she’ll just have to bear with.   
Not that the shinigami realm itself has any real appeal either.

While some of the odder others might find enjoyment from squandering some years or decades in her position, following the goings and comings of the mortal realm. Her mood sours at the idea of one shinigami in particular, she shifts her focus back to the humans in the room.

* * *

Watching Gelus’ human, hours after making it safely home from evading their would-be killer, it’s late into the night now and they’re lying awake on their bed, staring up at the ceiling. It’s as good a time as any, now that their housemates should be asleep and they’ve calmed down after their brush with death. 

She lets Gelus’ death note hang one final moment in her grasp before letting go. It makes a muffled thud as it hits the rug of their room, and the human twitches, rolling onto their side to scan the room for the disturbance. They look over the edge of the bed to the dark spot on the rug, stretch themself to turn on the bedside lamp.

They hang off the edge of the bed and reach out limply, and they don’t so much pick it up as turn it over on the floor, letting the pages flutter as they flip it over to read the cover. There’s a moment before Rem’s presence is registered, her shadow looming in their peripheral vision. Once it does, again, they freeze entirely.

Several still moments pass before they slowly lift their head up to her. They remain silent and tense, before carefully lifting themself into a sitting position, as they take in the form of the creature in front of them. Rem, for her part, remains just as still and impassive.

The human sits up fully. Cranes their neck to make bright, wary eye contact with her, before speaking-

* * *

The humans currently ignoring her after she’d iterated and reiterated the same speech in favor of piecing together the patchwork of their worldviews. the way the first one scrambled back when they saw her and she explained the reason for their continued existence, how she assured them 

Yuzu, the loud one that met her with sharp hostility (protectiveness for her friend? Admirable though futile as it would be, there’s a certain sentiment to the novelty in that kind of reaction that Rem can’t quite place). She cycled quickly from outward antagonism to guarded suspicion, before settling firmly on frenetic and exhaustive interrogation.

Most of the table was covered in Yuzu’s tools for said interrogation- namely the contents of a pencil bag that were now strewn about everywhere (and under the couch), and index cards. The index cards were separated into two piles- one containing hastily scrawled questions paired with Rem’s best given answers in one pile, with the other of questions Rem either didn’t know how to answer, or in which her answers were deemed unsatisfactory. It was the later pile Yuzu was flipping through, adding addendums in red ink and muttering to herself under her breath.

To her immediate left and up was the placating human, Kol, the one who seemed keen on taking the role of peacemaker. He was also the only one in the room actually sitting on a chair, though barely, as he was perched at the very edge of it. Elbows perched on his knees and completely hunched forward as he fiddles with the settings on the camera that has periodically been pointed and flashed at her throughout this little assembly.

Thursday, the one Gelus saved, was for their part sitting stock still and silent in their position on the floor. Cross legged, one arm flat in front of them on the table with the other propping their head, Rem would almost think they’re in shock from the full disclosure of their dodged death. The divulge of knowledge regarding the supernatural following the heels of it was unlikely to help any, and Rem knew it was quite a lot to expect any meager mortal to handle well.

Except, like before when they stared up at her, now their gaze was directed down at the open page in front of them. At what once was Gelus' death note, open to a page with a single name scribbled in tight, frantic script.

The last stroke of the character of the name slopes sharply off the page, like the pen was slapped out of the hand of the writer (like he jolted from a sudden pressure before the shape of him started dissolving, like whatever force binding him together loosened and he fell apart like so much sand. Deep inside, something in Rem shudders).

Rem herself sits at the opposite side of the table, hovering vaguely over the end of the couch that none of the humans are bothering with. The magazines that had been carelessly pushed onto the floor to make room for the impromptu interrogation were there at her feet, the top one splayed open to show a photospread of a blonde human dressed in black lace, kneeling and illuminated by candle light. The plastic little wings she wears drag Rem back to a previous train of thought, and she scowls before lifting her head to survey the room once more.

( _What if…_ )

There’s a nagging unease that’s making her apprehensive of it all, she thinks. From her own newfound revelation, that association with humans has the potential to come with such a high cost. 

So, perhaps in some ways that kind of feeling should be expected, she thinks, regarding proximity to a human that could not only grab the attention of one of her kind, but make him _act_ for them as well.

A human who could make a god of death die for them.

Despite neither her nor Gelus being aware of the fact until the two of them were faced with its consequences _(until it was her, alone with his pile of ashes)_.

_(the human, alone, a corpse left in their wake and new numbers above their head, two stolen things they never asked for)_

Despite that ignorance and all it cost her friend, Rem still feels just a little keyed up, on pins and needles in a room with these humans, humans whose clocks she can see ticking down in front of her, with a foreign awareness of the fragility she shares with them, despite all that separates them as species, predator and prey.

It was an indulgence that killed him, and maybe he didn’t know it would do that, but that’s the issue itself, isn’t it? Are there other ways she could act within her nature and cross some invisible line, the kind that can cost her?

It’s a bitter realization to have, the unfamiliar feeling of, even through the long years, past all of the eons and eras of humanity that’ve passed her by like so much sediment on the wind- through all of the stagnance, the sterile _rot_ of her own realm. The fear of losing hold of herself, being swept away like so much dust to dust, it was not a feeling she’d wanted so close to her own person.

Gelus’ reason for saving the human was that he grew attached. And while the extent to which that attachment stretched was an aberration, the base of it was not. When she sat next to him to watch, to look down through the portal he’d hunched himself in front of, she knew they were reading the same book, even if they might not have had the same investment.

To her, to _them_ as a species, it was just meant as another form of indulgence, a way to relieve boredom.

But, despite her rationale and reassurance to herself, there, still, was a lingering question. Lodged at the back of her throat, flitting at the tips of her wings and scraping at the edges of her claws.

If.

If Gelus had _known_. It’s this thought that’s been floating at the edge of her thoughts, ever since.

If he had known saving a human would cost him? Would he have done it anyway? And if he would’ve, then _why?_ And what does that say about everything she knows about her own nature? (Is it something she’s capable of? Why would anyone want to be?)

It is as captivating as it is terrifying.

“...Rem?”

She blinks, coming back to herself, and sees them all looking up at her.

“Yes?”

“Can even gods of death catch ghosts?” asks Kol, quirking his lip. Yuzu turns and swats his knee. Thursday, sitting closest to her, furrows their brow as they look her over again, and at any other time perhaps she’d be curious what it is they’re trying to read from her, Rem finds herself focusing on the numbers above their head instead. There’s a final twinge of unease inside herself before she lets it go, and finds herself pulled back into the present with the humans and their reinvigorated conversation. Whatever the humans’ questions and plans are from here, this will be her immediate future for however long they choose, or however long they last.

At any rate, despite the nagging questions, with all she’s now sure of, the present moment is something to weather through.

However unintentionally it might've been on the humans part, and despite the nagging questions it’s opened up, the lines in the sand have been etched out for her. That was something to be wary of, now that she knew she needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic, to me, is a combination attempt at worldbuilding re: Shinigami, attempt at trying to characterize a canon character (Rem) and make a semi-consistent POV, and also attempt at writing ocs like at all ever. I keep meaning to write actual like, dialogue, but will I ever :/ ?
> 
> But yeah hope it was enjoyable to anyone else. _My_ personal favorite thing about my own writing is unreliable narrator Rem, super wary of Thursday who is just str8 up dissociating thru the whole fic. It’s basically that one spongebob meme. *rem voice* stop starin’ at me with them big ol’ eyes.
> 
> To any poor souls interested I’ve spoken about them at length on my tumblr, @benevolentdecay, so have fun with that if you so wish. I made a timeline on there for where this fic is in Events but for anyone curious, but yeah in this AU I fuck with the timeline for my own laughs and also some minor plot points, so in this Rem drops Gelus’ notebook before Ryuk does, meaning everything that happens here / all reactions to the supernatural is pre-Kira.


End file.
